Setback for Jagan as TDP wrests Graduate MLC seats

In a significant electoral outcome ahead of the Assembly elections next year, the TDP has won all three Graduate MLC seats in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council, which went to polls on Monday.

The Opposition party led by former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu has been facing continuous defeats — be it bypolls to Assembly, the Lok Sabha or the panchayat, municipal body elections — since Jaganmohan Reddy stormed to power in 2019 winning 151 out of 175 Assembly seats.

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But now, the TDP candidates Vepada Chiranjeevi Rao, Kancharla Srikanth and Ramgopal Reddy have won the Srikakulam-Vizianagaram-Visakhapatnam, Prakasam-Nellore-Chittoor and Kurnool-Kadapa-Anantapur graduate MLC seats respectively.

Elections to the Graduate seats - where registered graduates are the voters - were held on March 13 and the counting began on Thursday. Polls were held in two teachers’ and three local authorities’ constituencies too on the same day. There are five graduate constituencies in AP and the present three seats cover over 100 out of 175 Assembly segments.

The triple victory came as a shot in the arm for the TDP, which was struggling to keep up the fight against Jagan. The party was quick to react, stating the results as a “clear indication of the beginning of the downfall of Jagan.”

TDP supremo Naidu said, “people have won.” “Salute to the activists and leaders who stood against YSRCP irregularities. It is a people’s victory. A sign of change. The way to good. Auspicious for the state,” tweeted Naidu with the hashtag #ByeByeJaganIn2024.

The YSRCP, however, discounted the results, stating that the graduates only form one segment of society. Alleging discrepancies, the party is also demanding recounting in the Kurnool-Kadapa-Anantapur constituency.

“Graduate votes cannot be seen as reflective of overall voters’ thinking,” YSRCP general secretary Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy told reporters, reiterating confidence in the party’s welfare oriented policies.